As an iPhone user with numerous apps I have a world of statistical information at my fingertips.
From the WordPress Dashboard, to Facebook insights, Google Analytics, adwords, Twitter followers, LinkedIn profile stats, the channel views on YouTube … the statistical information rivals cricket (or to the US audience – baseball).
Oh, and don’t forget Klout and other amalgamated reporting tools.
The Virtual Game
It seems we’re increasingly inundated with more and more information but less and less relevance.
All these stats prompting us to believe we’re successful if we purchased and lacking if we haven’t.
It’s the virtual game, the online whitewash of mindless hours visually consuming any content that stumbles upon us.
We are generating millions of pages of predominant drivel yet nary a work of art in site.
The great thinkers, the philosophers of yesteryear, I wonder would they have blogged? Tweeted?
Don’t misunderstand, the act of blogging is a wonderful medium and I love the equalising nature of the Internet – yet as I squander my train trip on a blog post does it really matter?
Am I just adding to the virtual game?
It’s the Circle of (Google) Life
A great Ecclesiastes quote is there’s nothing new under the sun … the rise of the Internet, the spread of information, the build up of content … it seems we’re going full circle to why Google first became prevalent.
Increasingly relevance is the buzzword no one wants to discuss. The relevance of Twitter, Facebook, dare I say it … Google.
Seriously, the relevance of search, of innumerable followers, overwhelming likes … we are rapidly being fooled into playing a virtual game of popularity and rank.
Like the gamblers avidly pressing the buttons for the next big win – it’s coming – we’re dreaming up optimised headings with keyword saturation hoping for indexation and an increased click through rate.
Death by Analysis
Are we slowly killing creativity, new thought focusing on reach rather than relevance? Surely this is contradictory having written a blog of content on virtually nothing – but this is a pondering site, I don’t even fool myself in considering it relevant!
As I view site stats, the rise and fall of analytics, the static nature of pagerank, the Facebook likes and Twitter followers … what is the relevance? What does it really mean to have a strong Klout score – whose clout are you affecting? To tweet or not to tweet, a rhetorical question … and I’m not convinced I even like Facebook. I’m linked in to India, China, Pakistan but not to my local community.
So to the wise of the virtual world, the knowledgeable of social media, are we just drowning in analytical nonsense biased by various platforms or is there a meaning to this unceasing wave of verb-age?
